Chapter 1169: Curtains Rising 1

"Little brother?" Garen laughed out loud. "Do you know how old I am? And yet you dare call me little brother just like that..." He emphasized the word 'little'.

"Could you possibly be older than five thousand years old?" said Nine-Tailed Fox smilingly. "I'm already 6,600 years old, you know~~"

"You musky fox!" Beside them, Kong Xinxue's expression was one of disgust as she held her nose and hurriedly distanced herself from them. "If I sit close to you, that foul musk of yours gets me straight in the nose!"

"In that case, you are older than me, but this is my first time seeing a girl insist that she's older than someone else." Garen sniffed, and did indeed smell a sweet fragrance. It came from Nine-Tailed Fox and seemed to be a perfume, but it was not particularly thick. It was true, men did enjoy a smell like this.

"That's why you gotta call me Big Sis... Compared to that worthless Ah Xue over there, there are a lot more benefits to calling me your big sister," said Nine-Tailed Fox with a laughing, twirling a lock of her long hair around her finger.

On the other side, Kong Xinxue was annoyed again.

"Damn old witch, you're still acting young at your age? Why couldn't you have been struck dead by lightning back then!? To think you ended up reincarnating here, meeting you is the biggest stain on my life!" said Kong Xinxue expressionlessly.

"Oh, my... Look, your little brother's hand is starting to wander, isn't it?" Nine-Tailed Fox grabbed Garen's hand, and placed it on her waist gently, slowly moving it downward. Her expression was taunting as she looked at Kong Xinxue. But although it looked extremely promiscuous, in truth she did not allow Garen's hand to touch her body at all, the back of her own hand staying resolutely between his touch and her skin.

"Pervert!" Kong Xinxue stared at Garen, and spat the words out through clenched teeth.

"It has nothing to do with me," said Garen innocently. "I'm being forced."

"..." Kong Xinxue was speechless, Nine-Tailed Fox giggled. Everyone else burst out laughing as well.

They had a lot of fun with that meal, and then some of the others who had business to attend to left first.

Since Garen had laid it out with Kong Xinxue, and no longer assumed the identity of her younger brother, the two of them were not as close as they had been before either. Kong Xinxue could not watch how Garen allowed Nine-Tailed Fox to hug him without resistance, so she angrily downed a few large cups of soy sauce, then she got up and left without a word.

"Let's go too." Nine-Tailed Fox had always held Garen's hand on her bosom, and it looked extremely suggestive on the surface, but in truth he never really touched anything sensitive either.

Now that Kong Xinxue had left, she pulled Garen's hand away.

"As a Territorial Administrator, that girl isn't tolerant enough," she giggled, smoothing out her long hair.

"Are you very close to her?" asked Garen curiously.

"So-so, I guess... We used to be very good friends, but then the guy she finally fell in love with for the first time fell in love with me instead, and I threw him away in the end. Perhaps that was too heavy a blow to her ego, and our relationship started going downhill from there." Nine-Tailed Fox sat alone with Garen, chatting idly. She drank cup after cup of plain water, but she drank it as others would drink wine. Seemed like she was no regular person either...

"Sounds like a very tragic story." Garen was bored anyway, so he decided to stay back and listen to some gossip about Kong Xinxue. Unbeknownst to him, as soon as he relaxed completely, it was as though he was a completely different person. Consider how nervous he was before, and that was how relaxed he was now. He did not want to even think about things like Soul Rings or the like anymore. At first he thought he would be able to find a fellow Inheritor, but instead he found something better, fellow Transmigrators. That sense of loneliness buried deep within Garen's heart was slowly beginning to fade.

The existence of Lighthouse told him that he was not alone, and that there were many other Transmigrators struggling and living their lives in many of the other different worlds. He just never encountered them before. Even if he had, perhaps they simply did not recognize each other.

"I can tell, you've been alone for a very long time. I know that feeling," said Nine-Tailed Fox with a sigh. "There was a period of three thousand years when I was so lonely I nearly went mad. The fact that I was a Transmigrator was a secret that only I could keep, and I was constantly terrified of revealing my true identity in my daily actions and daily life. I only managed to relieve that suffocating sensation, of having something forever stuck in my heart, when I met Ah Xue..."

"When you met Ah Xue? Were you two in the same world before?" said Garen out of curiosity.

"She was the one who saved me..." Nine-Tailed Fox gently picked up a lock of her black hair, twirling it around and around her fingertip. "She found me in a maze underneath some ruins, and brought me into Lighthouse... In the end, she was the one who brought me here, to this world, where I settled down. It's been 53 years now, come to think of it."

"No wonder your relationship seems strange." Garen nodded. "Since you've lived for six thousand years, you're my senior, so I'd like to ask you a question."

"Go ahead. I can't promise I'll be able to answer you, but since I fancy the way you look, I'll try my best to reply as a reward to you." Nine-Tailed Fox narrowed her eyes, sprawling onto the table and letting her long hair fan out, some of it falling onto the table like a cloth and some of it hanging down like a waterfall.

"Do you know anything about Soul Seeds?"

"Soul Seeds?" Nine-Tailed Fox was slightly taken aback. "Isn't that something from the Mother Stream System? I thought only people who used the Mother Stream as their cultivation system would have something like that, but I hear that it's extremely difficult to condense. Why? Do you want to condense that?"

"Of course I do," replied Garen frankly. "Since you know about it, that must mean that there are other people using the Mother Stream System in Lighthouse, right?"

"Yes, there are... But the Mother Stream System is quite the unpopular system, it's very hard to level up, and it is highly restricted by the laws of the world, so it would require a great commitment in terms of both energy and time. Very few people would take this path..." said Nine-Tailed Fox hesitantly. "Using my Faerie System, for example, I can reach a high level of power within a mere thousand years, and even I come to a world with very harsh restrictions like this one, my Vitality will still be extremely considerable. Then there's the Holy Knight System, people who use it can obtain extremely powerful physical abilities within a very short time. These are all extremely effective shortcuts, but the Mother Stream System is different... Their aim is something far too pure, they always discard more than 90% of their energy because it's impure, and they only accept the tiny bits of the absolutely pure Soul Seed that's left."

"So they're a bit too slow, is that it?" Garen continued.

"Yeah, extremely slow." Nine-Tailed Fox nodded.

Panpan was starting to bring up some candelabras, lighting them. There were three three-forked candelabras, placed on the long table to illuminate the faces of those who remained.

By now, the attendees had been divided into three small groups, Garen and Nine-Tailed Fox in one, and the rest divided into two groups. They all kept the conversation to themselves.

"If you have enough Contribution Points, you can apply to go to a world that specializes in cultivating Soul Seeds, I hear that you'd need a large sum of Contribution Points to reincarnate that world. If you use regular methods, it's really easy for them to discover that you're a foreign soul, so quite a few travelers have been destroyed by the people there."

"That's why I'd need to pay a large sum to conceal myself?" Garen understood now.

"That's right." Nine-Tailed Fox nodded. "To us Transmigrators, our souls are the root to everything that's special about us, so if it's destroyed, we'll die for real. Although the Mother Stream System is very mysterious and powerful, less than a handful of people would actually choose it. In my opinion, if you haven't gotten too deep into it yet, you can choose another type of system." Garen could tell that this advise came straight from her heart.

"It's okay, I'm already used to it anyway, and now I've even condensed a Soul Seed. I'm already halfway down this path, there's no reason for me to squander all my past efforts," said Garen with a shrug. He had based everything he learned on the Ancient Endor Civilization, and he really would not be used to it if he changed paths now.

"You already condensed one? Then that's not too bad, although I don't exactly know what Soul Seeds actually do, there should be something special about them. It's just that the Mother Stream System takes too long, so don't think of obtaining any decent powers for at least ten thousand years, hang in there." Nine-Tailed Fox nodded. "Sigh..." She stretched, revealing glimpses of her jade-white abdomen.

"Alright, Little Brother, your Big Sis wants to go back and sleep." She waved her fingers, and conjured a black card as though by magic. "This is my name card, it's my private number, y'know... If you ever have the need, just come find Big Sis and I'll help you get it out of your system!" she said by Garen's ear softly, bending over.

The card was quietly slipped into Garen's shirt pocket.

"Sure, don't mind if I do." Garen had no intention of declining, this Nine-Tailed Fox in front of him was more than six thousand years old, and would have more knowledge than an encyclopedia.

Accepting the card, he smiled at her.

"If I encounter any problems, could I ask you for help, Big Sis? I might need your help with some things soon. I've been swept into this world's Plot, and things could get very troublesome if I'm not careful."

"No problem, as long as it's not the Slayer, I'll be sure to cover for you! Relax, my little brother!" Nine-Tailed Fox got up, and patted down her short skirt. "Alright, I really gotta go."

"Thanks, Big Sis," said Garen with a smile.

"If you're already calling me your sister, why do you have to be so polite? You look just like me from back then, alone, constantly wary. You poor child..." Nine-Tailed Fox bent over, and touched Garen's face lightly.

"Be careful, only a very select few unnatural powers work here in this world, so if you ever see a gun, just get away from it as soon as you can."

She got up and walked out of the restaurant, swaying her hips elegantly. After greeting a few of the remaining people, she left for real.

Garen got up as well, bidding Panpan goodbye.

"Wait a sec, Ah Xue left this for you." Panpan handed him a small item, it was a round silver button.

"What's this?" Garen turned it over in his hands, confused.

"It's a Lighthouse communication device, using the latest projection technology, it can connect directly to Lighthouse's main server. You can accept Quests to earn Contribution Points there, or you could upload Quests to hire powerhouse, or you could even use it to buy items. You keep it yourself, it can only be used after verifying our unique soul attribute. Others would only think it's a regular button," Panpan explained.

"Got it. Thanks." Garen nodded. He recalled that Kong Xinxue had left in a huff earlier, but to think she had still remembered to arrange all this for him. In his heart, his impression of her improved somewhat.

******************

Leaving the restaurant gathering, Garen soon reached home, and greeted Kong Yuan in a hurry. Kong Xinxue had already fallen asleep.

After Garen quickly cleaned up and brushed his teeth on his own, he entered his own room, and started to investigate that Lighthouse communication device.

Turning on the table lamp with a smack, he adjusted its brightness, and then Garen pressed down lightly on the silver button.

Psst...

A silver light flashed across the surface of the button.

'Soul Verification complete, system activation conditions met.' A melodious female voice spoke in Garen's head. The words were not spoken in any language, but seemed instead to be converted straight into brainwaves.